‘Brain Gym Exercises’ for classroom excellence N. C. SRIDHARAN, U.S.-trained consultant and educationist

Brain Gym helps in learning-related difficulties such as dyslexia, ADD, poor memory, concentration etc.

Competitive edge: With more emphasis on classroom performance, parents want to apply the best techniques to make their child intellectually superior.

In the era of perfect competition, parenting has become a full time responsibility. With more and more emphasis on classroom performance, every parent wants to apply the best known techniques to make their child intellectually superior. Today parenting has become a ‘technology’! To tap the full potential of children we need to maintain the brain well.

Over the years many techniques and tools have been invented to keep the brain fully functioning to its optimum capacity. In the recent past Brain Gym Exercises are becoming very popular all over the world.

Way back in 1969 Dr. Paul Dennison and Gail E. Dennison, educational therapists in America developed the Brain Gym exercises.

They were studying brain functions and Kinesiology.Kinesiology is a kind of self-help skill for improving general well-being of the human system.

When properly applied kinesiology will help to balance and fine-tune emotions, feelings and the mental energy. Kinesiology is about study of human movements and how it can influence the brain function and mental fitness.

While working with children who had learning difficulties, he noticed that the human body has acupressure points, which when activated will substantially improve the functioning of the brain.

One more related topic to understand the relevance of Brain Gym exercise is Neuroplasticity.

Neuroplasticity is a medical term which deals with the brain’s ability to adapt itself to the outside world. According to the principles of neuroplasticity, when we carry out certain challenging exercises, the brain matter adapts and re-arranges itself to help overcome brain related difficulties such as absent mindedness, lack of concentration etc, through increased secretion of neuropeptides.

When properly applied Brain Gym exercises helps learning related difficulties such as dyslexia, Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), poor memory, poor organizing skill, lack of body coordination, poor concentration etc.

Simple exercises

We are aware how these parameters will affect the quality of teaching and learning. The Brain Gym exercises are very simple and can be practiced very easily.

‘Drink water’ is one such exercise. As the name indicates, it recommends that the children drink water just before the class starts. We all know that 80 per cent of the brain contains water and lack of water will lead to dehydration which will in turn affect the quality of the concentration.

‘Cross crawl’ is another interesting exercise which will integrate the Right and the Left side of the brain. Thishemispherical integration is very important for planning and execution which will decide the quality of time management.

Some students cannot recall anything they read when they get into the examination due to anxiety and nervousness. ‘Hook Ups’ is a simple Brain Gym exercise which claims to calm down a person and reduces test anxiety.

‘Lazy Eights’ is another interesting exercise which claims to improve eye-muscles coordination and peripheral vision besides integrating the Right and the Left side of the brain. Brain Gym specialists claim that this exercise improves reading speed.

Some parents complain that their children find it difficult to deal with spelling, math and chemical symbols and spelling. ‘Double doodle’ is a Brain Gym exercise which will help students to overcome this problem.‘The Elephant’ is a Brain Gym exercise which improves such skills.

Brain Gym exercises are simple and easy to do activities dealing with four of the brain’s three dimensions: laterality, focus and centering. Laterality is the ability to integrate the three important pathways to learning, viz, the visual, auditory and the kinesthetic.

Focus is the ability to connect the back and the frontal lobes of the brain which will improve the quality of comprehension. Centering is the process of coordinating the top and the bottom portion of the brain which helps emotional balance and reduce the stress level.

Parental guidance

Parental care and guidance is very important to deal with the education related issues. Given the age and lack of maturity, the children may not be able to use all their resources and potential to perform at the best.

The school administration should also train their physical education teachers on new techniques such as Brain Gym so that all the students can have the benefits of the same.

TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE

1. The longest one-syllable word in the English language is “screeched.”

2. “Dreamt” is the only English word that ends in the letters “mt”

3. Almonds are members of the peach family.

4. The symbol on the “pound” key (#) is called an octothorpe.

5. The dot over the letter ‘i’ is called a tittle.

6. Ingrown toenails are hereditary.

7. The word “set” has more definitions than any other word in the English language.

8. “Underground” is the only word in the English language that begins and ends with the letters “und.”

9. There are only four words in the English language which end in “-dous”: tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.

10. The longest word in the English language, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.

11. The only other word with the same amount of letters is its plural: pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosesl.

12. The longest place-name still in use is Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukup okaiwe-nuakit natahu, a New Zealand hill.

13. Los Angeles’s full name is “El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reinade los Angeles de Porciuncula” and can be abbreviated to 3.63% of its size,L.A.

14. An ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain.

15. Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur.

16. Alfred Hitchcock didn’t have a belly button. It was eliminated when he was sewn up after surgery.

17. Telly Savalas and Louis Armstrong died on their birthdays.

18. Donald Duck’s middle name is Fauntleroy.

19. The muzzle of a lion is like a fingerprint – no two lions have the same pattern of whiskers.

21. A pregnant goldfish is called a twit.

23. There is a seven-letter word in the English language that contains ten words without rearranging any of its letters, “therein”: the,there, he, in, rein, her, here, ere, therein, herein.

24. Dueling is legal in Paraguay as long as both parties are registered blood donors.

26. A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds.

27. It’s impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.

28. Cranberries are sorted for ripeness by bouncing them; a fully ripened cranberry can be dribbled like a basketball.

30. The letters KGB stand for Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti

31. ‘Stewardesses’ is the longest English word that is typed with only the left hand.

33. The combination “ough” can be pronounced in nine different ways; the following sentence contains them all: “A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough; after falling into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed.”

34. The only 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is uncopyrightable.

35. Facetious and abstemious contain all the vowels in the correct order, as does arsenious, meaning “containing arsenic.”

36. Emus and kangaroos cannot walk backwards, and are on the Australian seal for that reason.

37. Cats have over one hundred vocal sounds, while dogs only have about ten.

38. The word “Checkmate” in chess comes from the Persian phrase “Shah Mat,” which means “the king is dead.”

39. The reason firehouses have circular stairways is from the days of yore when the engines were pulled by horses. The horses were stabled on the ground floor and figured out how to walk up straight staircases.

CONTRADICTORY PROVERBS

Every Action has an equal and an opposite reaction. Similarly, every proverb has an equal and an opposite proverb! There always exists two sides of the same coin.

You be the judge..

All good things come to those who wait.
BUT
Time and tide wait for no man.

The pen is mightier than the sword.
BUT
Actions speak louder than words.

Wise men think alike.
BUT
Fools seldom differ.

The best things in life are free things..
BUT
There’s no such thing as a free lunch.

Slow and steady wins the race.
BUT
Time waits for no man.

Look before you leap.
BUT
Strike while the iron is hot.

Do it well, or not at all.
BUT
Half a loaf is better than none.

Birds of a feather flock together.
BUT
Opposites attract.

Don’t cross your bridges before you come to them.
BUT
Forewarned is forearmed.

Doubt is the beginning of wisdom.
BUT
Faith will move mountains.

Great starts make great finishes.
BUT
It ain’t over ’till it’s over.

Practice makes perfect.
BUT
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

Silence is golden.
BUT
The squeaky wheel gets the grease.

You’re never too old to learn.
BUT
You can’t teach an old dog new tricks

What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.
BUT
One man’s food is another man’s poison.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder.
BUT
Out of sight, out of mind.

Too many cooks spoil the broth.
BUT
Many hands make light work.

Hold fast to the words of your ancestors.
BUT
Wise men make proverbs and fools repeat

Life and its Learning – Must read

One young academically excellent person went to apply for a managerial position in a big company. He passed the first interview; the director did the last interview, made the last decision.

The director discovered from the CV that the youth’s academic achievements were excellent all the way, from the secondary school until the postgraduate research, never had a year when he did not score.

The director asked, “Did you obtain any scholarships in school?” the youth answered “none”.

The director asked, “Was it your father who paid for your school fees?” The youth answered, “My father passed away when I was one year old, it was my mother who paid for my school fees.

The director asked, “Where did your mother work?” The youth answered, “My mother worked as clothes cleaner. The director requested the youth to show his hands. The youth showed a pair of hands that were smooth and perfect.

The director asked, “Have you ever helped your mother wash the clothes before?” The youth answered, “Never, my mother always wanted me to study and read more books. Furthermore, my mother can wash clothes faster than me.

The director said, “I have a request. When you go back today, go and clean your mother’s hands, and then see me tomorrow morning.*

the youth felt that his chance of landing the job was high. When he went back, he happily requested his mother to let him clean her hands. His mother felt strange, happy but with mixed feelings, she showed her hands to the kid.

The youth cleaned his mother’s hands slowly. His tear fell as he did that. It was the first time he noticed that his mother’s hands were so wrinkled, and there were so many bruises in her hands. Some bruises were so painful that his mother shivered when they were cleaned with water.

This was the first time the youth realized that it was this pair of hands that washed the clothes everyday to enable him to pay the school fee. The bruises in the mother’s hands were the price that the mother had to pay for his graduation, academic excellence and his future.

After finishing the cleaning of his mother hands, the youth quietly washed all the remaining clothes for his mother. That night, mother and son talked for a very long time.

Next morning, the youth went to the director’s office.

The Director noticed the tears in the youth’s eyes, asked: “Can you tell me what have you done and learned yesterday in your house?”

The youth answered,” I cleaned my mother’s hand, and also finished cleaning all the remaining clothes’ The Director asked, ” please tell me your feelings.”

The youth said, Number 1, I know now what appreciation is. Without my mother, there would not the successful me today. Number 2, by working together and helping my mother, only I now realize how difficult and tough it is to get something done. Number 3, I have come to appreciate the importance and value of family relationship.

The director said, “This is what I am looking for to be my manager. I want to recruit a person who can appreciate the help of others, a person who knows the sufferings of others to get things done, and a person who would not put money as his only goal in life. You are hired.

Later on, this young person worked very hard, and received the respect of his subordinates. Every employee worked diligently and as a team. The company’s performance improved tremendously.

A child, who has been protected and habitually given whatever he wanted, would develop “entitlement mentality” and would always put himself first. He would be ignorant of his parent’s efforts. When he starts work, he assumes that every person must listen to him, and when he becomes a manager, he would never know the sufferings of his employees and would always blame others. For this kind of people, who may be good academically, may be successful for a while, but eventually would not feel sense of achievement. He will grumble and be full of hatred and fight for more. If we are this kind of protective parents, are we really showing love or are we destroying the kid instead?*

You can let your kid live in a big house, eat a good meal, learn piano, watch a big screen TV. But when you are cutting grass, please let them experience it. After a meal, let them wash their plates and bowls together with their brothers and sisters. It is not because you do not have money to hire a maid, but it is because you want to love them in a right way. You want them to understand, no matter how rich their parents are, one day their hair will grow gray, same as the mother of that young person. The most important thing is your kid learns how to appreciate the effort and experience the difficulty and learns the ability to work with others to get things done.

You would have forwarded many mails to many and many of them would have back mailed you too…but try and forward this story to as many as possible…this may change somebody’s fate..

21 Valuable Life’s Lessons

1 – Give people more than they expect and do it cheerfully.

2 – Marry a man/woman you love to talk to. As you get older, their conversational skills will be as important as any other.

3 – Don’t believe all you hear, spend all you have or sleep all you want.

4 – When you say ‘I love you’, mean it.

5 – When you say, ‘I’m sorry’, look the person in the eye.

6 – Be engaged at least six months before you get married.

7 – Believe in love at first sight.

8 – Never laugh at anyone’s dreams. People who don’t have dreams don’t have much.

9 – Love deeply and passionately. You might get hurt but it’s the only way to live life completely.

10 – In disagreements, fight fairly. No name calling.

11 – Don’t judge people by their relatives.

12 – Talk slowly but think quickly.

13 – When someone asks you a question you don’t want to answer, smile and ask, ‘Why do you want to know?’

14 – Remember that great love and great achievements involve great risk.

15 – Say ‘bless you’ when you hear someone sneeze.

16 – When you lose, don’t lose the lesson.

17 – Remember the three R’s: Respect for self; Respect for others; and Responsibility for all your actions.

18 – Don’t let a little dispute injure a great friendship.

19 – When you realize you’ve made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.

20 – Smile when picking up the phone. The caller will hear it in your voice.

21 – Spend some time alone.

Take My Money Advice & Be Happy! Have A Good Laugh!

Praise the Lord…

Hi,

I am going  to say about the… Money

It can buy a house…

But not a home…

It can buy a clock
But not time

It can buy you a position
But not respect

It can buy you a bed
But not sleep

It can buy you a book
But not knowledge

It can buy you medicine
But not health

It can buy you blood
But not life…

So you see money isn’t everything…
And it often causes pain and suffering…

I tell you this because I am your friend

And as your friend I want to…

Take away your pain and suffering!!

So send me all your money

And I will suffer for you!

Cash only please!

After all, what are friends for, right??

I HOPE THIS MADE YOU SMILE!!!  LAUGHTER IS THE BEST MEDICINE!

START  SENDING YOUR  TROUBLES  (MONEY) IMMEDIATELY